He went to the drawer and pulled out a syringe. If he didn’t quiet her down, he was never going to get any sleep, and he needed to sleep. He was tired from all the driving. And he needed to go out and move some product, or they weren’t going to be able to eat. He pulled out the syringe and prepared it while she rocked and cried behind him.
“Ellie, shut the hell up. The kid is going to be fine! You’ll see. We are going to be so much better off without her.” Jonas used his sexy voice, the one that usually made her climb all over him. He knew that she liked it, but this time it didn’t do anything to her.
He grabbed Ellie’s arm and wrapped the stretchy band around it. She winced when he tightened it, but didn’t move. Jonas watched Ellie’s face when the needle went in, and her expression didn’t change. Good, he thought. She’ll be out of it for a while, and I won’t have to listen to her cry anymore. She will see how much better off we are now.
Ellie’s body consumed the drug while Jonas watched her go limp. He knew that she needed it to cope but he figured that after a few days she would forget, and things would be better. He had hoped anyway. For some reason he needed Ellie, and it was getting harder and harder to think about a life without her. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Don’t get all sappy, you idiot. She’s just like anyone else, take or leave her.
Ellie was lying peacefully on the ratty couch, and he laid a blanket over her and smoothed her hair. He sat next to her, careful not to jostle her too much. He thought about how young she looked, how innocent. He let his thumb run down her face and admired her perfect smooth skin and the long eyelashes that skimmed her cheeks. Five years after he met her, she still stopped his heart, even after everything they had been through. She did something to him that no one ever had before. He couldn’t explain it.
The first time he saw her walking through town, Jonas was instantly drawn to her.
He had been driving with the windows of his beat up Mustang rolled all the way down. The car was his baby, and he was trying to pull in enough scratch to fix her up, but was far from doing anything yet. He saw Ellie on the other side of the street as he pulled up to the light, and Jonas felt his heart stop. She was young. Too young. But something about her made him forget all about her age. She had looked at Jonas and smiled—a beautiful smile with small perfect teeth, big brown eyes shining bright. He felt instantly blinded, not even realizing when he did a U-turn and pulled up next to her.
She looked unfazed.
“Hi,” he said ignoring his heart in his throat. He hoped she wouldn’t see his nervousness.
“Hi,” she smiled, boldly, making him uneasy.
“I’m Jonas.”
“I know who you are,” she kept smiling, amused.
“You do?” he was curious. He had never seen this girl before in his life, and he would have remembered. She wasn’t the kind of girl who lived on his side of town, or who would know the people that he knew. He could tell by looking at her that she was a little girl with money, and certainly not the kind of girl who usually hung out with the likes of him.
“Of course I do. You’re Jonas Miles.” She was having fun. He was much older than Ellie, but his reputation was big in town. All of the kids knew that he was the guy you could score dope from, or anything else you wanted. She had attended a few parties where her friends had gotten their “stuff” from him. He was legendary. She thought it was funny that he didn’t know it.
“Yes,” he looked surprised, his dark green eyes widening. He didn’t think that someone like her would have any idea who he was. He looked at her tight cashmere sweater, and her nice expensive shoes and shook his head. She didn’t make sense to him. “Where are you going?”
“Why?” she said coyly.
He cleared his throat. He knew she was toying with him. But why? “I thought I could give you a ride.”
“Okay.” She said matter-of-factly. He expected her to say “No” and was taken aback by how bold she was. Before he knew it, she hopped in the front seat, throwing her book bag in the back. It landed with a thud, and he thought it sounded too heavy for such a small girl like her to carry.
“Where are you going?” he repeated.
“Wherever,” she said, smiling that blinding smile at him.
He smiled back, feeling his heart flutter with something he wasn’t used to feeling. Excitement? Weird! He was confused. She was just a little rich girl who was way too young for him. But there was just something about her.
They spent the entire rest of the day together. And the following day he picked her up from school, and the day after that.
Jonas knew that Ellie was smitten with him, and he with her. He had been with a lot of girls, but he had never met anyone like her before. He was careful to keep his feelings hidden. He wasn’t going to let some little rich girl take advantage of him. Jonas had seen it with his mother and her men, how they only used her for a little while and then left when they were done. All of his life he watched his mother’s heart get broken, so much so that she abandoned love entirely and stayed high and loose most of the time. Jonas wasn’t going to let anyone do that to him, ever.
But as Ellie lay in a drug-induced sleep, for a moment, Jonas let himself get lost in her. He stroked her cheek and kissed her forehead, and thought about how he would hate to ever lose her. She made him happy, even though she infuriated and frustrated him. He knew that he didn’t want to ever be without her.
And now that the kid was gone, it would just be the two of them always.
Chapter Four
Ellie and Adam
ADAM WAS FRANTIC. He felt as though his head were about to explode. Everybody was ignoring him, and he just wanted to know what was happening to his wife. His purpose—nearly his entire life—had been to take care of Brynn, and not being in control of what was happening to her was unbearable.
“How is Brynn? What is going on? Someone needs to give me some answers, right NOW!” Adam was furious as he stood at the nurse’s station, daring someone to make eye contact with him.
The nurses had kicked him out of Brynn’s area, and had closed the curtain and the glass door so that he couldn’t see in. No one would tell them what was going on. One moment he was holding Brynn’s hand, and the next they were practically pushing him out of the room.
“Sir, Sir! Please, quiet down! I don’t know anything yet, and as soon as I do, I will let you know. All that I know is that they are assessing her,” a mousy little nurse with brown hair was trying not to show her frustration with him. “Please, go sit down. We will call you as soon as we know something!”
Ellie came up and stood behind him. “Adam,” she said, startling him. She sounded so much like Brynn that it made him want to practically crawl out of his skin.
“What?” he turned on her angrily. If she had never shown up at the front door, none of this would have happened!
“Let’s go sit down,” Ellie said gently as she started to reach for his arm. She pulled back when she saw the look on his face.
Adam didn’t want to sit with her. He couldn’t sit right now. He needed to know what was happening. The last thing he saw before they closed the curtain was Brynn’s face. It was as white as a sheet. His first thought was that she was dying. Only fifteen minutes had passed, but it felt like a lifetime.
Just then, the curtain to Brynn’s room flew back and he saw the foot of her bed emerge as they quickly pushed it through the doorway.
Adam ran over to the room as the doctor stepped out and was following the bed.
“What’s going on?” Adam said blocking his path. “I’m her husband. Tell me what is happening.”
“The baby is in distress and your wife is in danger. We have to get the baby out immediately! We are going to do an emergency C-section.” The doctor was clearly in a hurry, and Adam stepped quickly out of his way.
He was stunned. After everything that he and Brynn had been through, Adam couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and their baby. He put his hands to his face an
d swallowed back a sob. One of the nurses appeared beside him and put her hand on his arm sympathetically. “I’ve called for one of our helpers to take you to the waiting room. They will come out and brief you as soon as the surgery is over.”
The helper was an older gentleman, Henry, who was much chattier than Adam would have liked. Henry talked to Adam during the entire slow walk to the waiting room, up four floors and halfway across the hospital. Adam tried to tune him out, but the older gentleman kept talking, distracting him from his current mission, which was to get to the waiting room to see how Brynn and the baby were doing.
Ellie walked slowly behind them, careful to keep her distance. She could tell that Adam didn’t like her, and she couldn’t blame him.
She had shown up at the door, and now Brynn was in the hospital, though by no fault of her own. Ellie knew by the look in Adam’s eyes that he blamed her. Ellie blamed herself, too. Trouble always seemed to gravitate toward her, and had all of her life. Why should this be any different? Ellie was feeling sorry for herself, and was trying to shake it off. She really needed something, anything, to calm her down.
Her hands were shaking and her nerves were a wreck, but Ellie knew that if she could make it through meeting her daughter, that she could make it through anything.
They finally made it to the quiet waiting room, and Ellie and Adam realized that Henry had stopped talking. “Here we are,” he said, pleasantly pointing them to the small open room in front of them. “There is a television, some magazines, and there is coffee at the end of the hall.”
Ellie couldn’t get over the hospitality that he was showing them, and thought with irony that they must charge extra for Henry to show them around. She thought back to that night so long ago when she was just a young girl in the hospital, her belly swollen and awkward as she was about to give birth. There hadn’t been anyone like Henry to show her around. She had been all alone and frightened. Ellie shook her head in awe at how much things had changed.
She snuck a peek at Adam, who had taken a seat across from her, and thought how lucky Eva must be to have someone like him. He clearly loved her deeply, his deep blue eyes awash in fear and pain. Ellie felt a twinge of jealousy and tried to shake it off. How can I be so jealous of my own daughter? But she felt it deep in her bones. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have him, so I must have done something right. She must not have needed me as much as I thought she would!
Ellie and Adam were alone in the quiet little room, and she felt the weight of the awkwardness. They hadn’t been completely alone yet. Ellie knew from the way he kept his distance that not only did Adam not like her, he didn’t trust her. That made Ellie angry.
How dare he judge me? He doesn’t know anything about me! Ellie peered at Adam through the corner of her eye. He was wearing a crisp button down shirt and dark gray slacks. They were getting ready to go somewhere nice, but were interrupted. By me? Or would this have happened anyway?
Adam cleared his throat, breaking the silence. Ellie realized that he was staring straight at her, and her heart stopped. She held her breath and waited for him to say something. His eyes were speaking, but she couldn’t figure out what they were saying.
“Why are you here?” he said, his deep voice carrying a hard edge.
Ellie’s eyes seemed to get bigger. She had been prepared to talk to Eva and explain herself, but she hadn’t anticipated this. She was never good answering to men, and it was even more difficult for her now. She shrank down in her chair, looking even smaller than she already was.
“I..I don’t think that this is something I can talk to you about,” she said, her voice quiet and low. She fought the urge to run. He was bigger than she was, much bigger. Ellie knew that he wasn’t like Jonas, but she was feeling the old familiar fear creeping up in her.
“If you can talk to Brynn, you can talk to me. I’m her husband. There is nothing that we don’t share.” Adam’s jaw was set, and he stared hard at Ellie.
Ellie sat as still as possible. I don’t have to answer to him. I don’t have to answer to any man! I’m here for my daughter, and that’s it. She fought the terror rising inside of her belly, fighting with the anger inside of her. She was nauseous.
Adam was getting impatient. He knew that he was making her uncomfortable, but he didn’t care. This woman needed to answer for what she had done to Brynn!
“I just wanted to explain things to her. To. My. Daughter.” Ellie was having a hard time speaking, her voice shaking almost as hard as her hands. She tried to sound confident but her voice gave her away.
Adam was quiet. He wanted to push her, to break her. He wanted her to answer for all of the pain she had caused Brynn. He stared at her, filled with disdain and overwhelming curiosity. She looked like Brynn, and sounded like Brynn, and she had probably even been as beautiful years ago. But Ellie’s yellowed teeth and stringy hair painted an unfamiliar picture for Adam, and he could tell that this woman was nothing like his Love.
“You can talk to me,” Adam said quietly, changing his tact. He knew that being aggressive with her was going nowhere. “You can….”
A nurse walked silently into the room. She looked at the woman and the man sitting opposite of one another and immediately wished that someone else had been sent to get them.
“Mr. Michael?” she said nervously.
Adam stood up immediately. “Yes, I’m Adam.”
“The doctor wants to talk to you,” she said, gathering herself.
“Where is he?” Adam asked, looking behind her for the doctor.
“You’ll have to come into one of our private rooms, and the doctor will come in and talk to you.”
Adam was confused. They couldn’t have been in the surgery room for even an hour. How can he be done already?
Adam followed the nurse into the room without so much as a backward glance at Ellie and waited. He wasn’t good at waiting, especially now that he and Brynn were back together. He had been waiting for years for her to decide that she trusted him. Adam had been patient with her, but now that Brynn was in jeopardy, the only thing that he cared about was making sure that she and the baby were safe.
He waited for the doctor to enter the private little room that felt more like a prison than a conference area. Five minutes felt like an hour. All that Adam could picture was Brynn’s face when she passed out, and he fought back tears every time he let the image come to him.
The door opened and Adam stood up quickly. He was on edge, and every nerve in his body tingling with fear and anticipation.
The doctor was a young woman, tall, almost masculine, wearing clean, colorful hospital scrubs. She had a confident air about her that made Adam feel better.
“Please, sit,” she said with a polite smile that didn’t seem to reach her eyes.
Adam sat down quickly. He could tell that she had something serious to tell him.
The doctor started talking. Her words came out quickly and automatically, and Adam found himself confused. It seemed as though she were talking for an hour, when in reality it was only for a few minutes. She used words that weren’t familiar, and he intentionally squinted his deep blue eyes as he tried to make sense of it all. At the end, he only understood when she said, “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that you may have to make a choice.”
“Choice? What choice?” Adam said, irritated. “I don’t understand half of what you just said.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She said, taken aback. “I thought I was explaining it clearly.”
“From what you just said, I have to choose what, the life of my wife, or my baby? How am I supposed to do that?” Adam ran his hands through his thick dark hair over and over, hoping to let the message sink in. How can she ask me to choose? How am I supposed to make a decision like that?
“I’m hoping it won’t get to that. Dr. Emmett is very good at what she does. I’m hoping you don’t have to make a choice. But Brynn has lost a lot of blood, and we want to prepare you for what may come if we can’t stabili
ze her.” The doctor looked at Adam sympathetically. Adam realized that he didn’t even know her name—and that he didn’t even care.
“So what do I do? Do I have to tell you now? What do I do?” Adam said, feeling on the edge of hysteria. Adam couldn’t imagine needing to choose. He knew that he couldn’t do it now. He knew that he needed help making the choice. He couldn’t do it alone. “I need to call my parents.”
She hated this part of her job. “If something happens, we won’t be able to wait. We need you to make a decision about whose life you want us to save. Think about what your wife would want. We can’t wait.” She had been sitting across from Adam, and she stood up and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Think about what Brynn would want you to do.”
“Save Brynn,” Adam blurted out. “If you have to make a choice, save Brynn.” Adam hated himself, feeling as though he just put a big X on his daughter’s head. He felt like he was going to throw up.
Adam didn’t look up as she left the room. She had asked him to do the impossible, and he hoped he would never have to see her again.
Chapter Five
Difficult Ellie
JONAS MILES WAS USED TO compliant, cooperative women. But Ellie was different. She was stubborn and difficult, and even though there were times he hated her, he always had the uncontrollable urge to go back to her. He couldn’t help himself.
When Jonas and Ellie got into a fight, he took it out on her as he usually did, by sleeping with another woman in their bed. He often punished her with the other girls, some younger and some older, all with dark hair and brown eyes like hers.
Ellie was tortured, but she loved Jonas, and needed him in ways she couldn’t explain.
She hated how he flaunted the other women in front of her. Alcohol made him mean, and he had a venomous tongue that lashed out at her in his drunkenness. She wanted him to let her go, but he wouldn’t, and she didn’t know how to purge him completely. He was selfish, and she loathed herself for letting him treat her as if she were nothing, until she truly began to believe she really was nothing.
Losing Eva (The Eva Series Book 2) Page 3
